Research And Realization Of Energy-saving Lighting Control System Used For Tunnels In Three Gorges Fanba Highway

Three Gorges Fanba Highway is located in Hubei, with a total investment of4.013billion yuan, opened on December31,2010. It is about58km long, and the bridges and tunnels account for about more than54%of the total length of the highway. There are totally13tunnels, five of which are more than3000meters. The Jigongling tunnel is about4500meters long which is the longest tunnel of all.There are many types of energy-saving systems for road-lighting currently, mainly divided into the following:(1) Energy-saving lamps for lighting using, such as LED lighting;(2) Strategies control, such as time switches, photoelectric control, smart lighting, etc.;(3) New energy for lighting, such as solar, wind, etc.;One energy-saving system for lighting can be made up not only by one system, but also a combination of those three types, such as strategies control system with LED lighting for further power savings. Due to specific road and lighting environments, the energy-saving systems are often different from each other. Ordinary roads do not need to open the lighting during the daytime and at night, due to the complexity of the road environment, the energy-saving system must be open and can only be controlled by adjusting the illumination brightness.The highway does not need to set up lighting equipment, but the tunnels must ensure the lighting conditions because there is no natural light even during daytime, particularly in some long tunnels. Thus, the electric power consumption for tunnel lighting accounts for a large part of the highway operation, the waste of electrical energy in the actual operation is very serious, and it is a conflict between energy-saving and traffic safety.Using traditional energy-saving systems in tunnel lighting can only save a part of energy consumption, and due to the specialist of the tunnel lighting, the system cannot achieve an expected energy-saving scope. Especially after midnight, the traffic is very small, and most of the tunnels with no car are still opening, resulting in a serious waste.The new energy-saving of lighting control system, based on the traffic characteristics for highway tunnels, is the "most effective" energy-saving system. If there is no car inside the tunnel, the system will turn off the tunnel lighting directly, fundamentally solve the problem of energy consumption. The energy-saving system runs24hours a day, and especially after midnight, energy-saving is very obvious. The initial operation monitoring showed that lights were turned off2-4hours/day, resulting a daily saving about72kwh. Hourslntegrated with other types of energy-saving methods, such as selection of LED lamps, discharge lamps etc., electric power consumption of highway tunnel lighting will be cut to a minimum with the purpose of green and low-carbon operation.The new energy-saving of lighting system is hard to design, especially in long tunnels. Without instructions the tunnels mentioned in this paper are long tunnels. The paper first describes some of the common lighting systems. Then it analyzes the structure of the new energy-saving system based on highway tunnels. A variety of plans for the detection of the traffic in tunnels are studied in detail for new lighting control system. Also, an experiment in the Gongjiaba tunnel of Three Gorges Fanba Highway is introduced. The experiment shows the energy-saving efficiency of new lighting control system. And finally the paper gives an outlook for expansion on the future system.